When California Gov. Gavin Newsom sees a political alternative, he seizes it—a superb signal that Democratic management is recalibrating to be on the forefront of the battle towards Donald Trump within the years forward.
Over the weekend, Newsom chimed in on the infighting amongst MAGA hardliners and DOGE bros Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.
Because the governor of the nation’s most populous state—and one among its bluest—Newsom aligned himself with Elon Musk on the subject of H-1B visas in a sequence of posts on X highlighting the fractures among the many conservative base.
“.@ElonMusk is right when he said: ‘you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be.’ The same principle should apply to supporting our farmworkers, construction, and trades workers who build and feed our country. Top talent is top talent,” Newsom wrote on X.
“Good to see Trump embrace Elon’s position,” he wrote in one other put up. “Hardworking immigrants should continue to be part of our great nation. From Silicon Valley to the Central Valley, we are better off when we have competition and top talent–from farmworkers, construction workers, CEOs, and beyond.”
Unsurprisingly, MAGA was displeased—and delusional as ever. One person commented, “We will make him change that position soon, Gavin.”
One other wrote, “Lol, When Gavin Newsom supports it, you’re definitely doing something wrong.”
Ramaswamy, who was born to immigrant mother and father and whose father remains to be a citizen of India, began the web feud on Dec. 26.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” Ramaswamy posted on X, including some fairly outdated examples of American popular culture. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”
A day later, a “pure satire” person on X posted an interview with Ramaswamy with the caption, “The Indian impulse to scam.”
Trump’s current reward of the H-1B visa displays a sample of flip-flopping on the difficulty. In 2016, he supported the visa in a debate on Fox Information—a change from his stance acknowledged on his marketing campaign web site.
“We want extremely expert individuals on this nation. If we will not do it, we are going to get them in. And we do want in Silicon Valley, we completely need to have. So we do want extremely expert [workers],” he mentioned.
When requested if he’s moved away from his earlier stance, which was that “[t]oo many visas, like the H-1B, have no such requirement” to rent American employees first, he mentioned that he’s “changing it, and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.”
As AP reported, simply three months into his first time period, Trump issued a “Buy American and Hire American” government order, which directed his administration to reform H-1B visas to be awarded solely to the highest-paid or most expert candidates to guard American employees.
California, which shares a border with Mexico, has the best variety of immigrants of any state within the nation—making up one-fifth of the state’s inhabitants in recent times. And greater than half of employees within the state are first- or second-generation immigrants.
Newsom has lengthy been thought of a chief within the Democratic Occasion’s resistance to Trump, and he’s even being thought of a potential presidential candidate for the 2028 election. Immigration—one thing Newsom is aware of properly—was a key situation that introduced voters to the polls in November, and Newsom seems to be benefiting from this favorable political second.
In the meantime, Ramaswamy and Musk are going through a crumbling MAGA bromance as they navigate the minefield of racism and bigotry. Who’s going to inform them that’s precisely what they signed up for once they hitched their wagon to Trump?
